


but they refused

by NikoArtagnan



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Second Person, Spoilers, Temporary Character Death, Timeline Fuckery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-08 00:48:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5476955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NikoArtagnan/pseuds/NikoArtagnan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>You have looked long into the abyss, and it has looked long into you, until you thought nothing was left. </i>
</p><p> </p><p>Some thoughts on Asriel, past, present, future. A character study for the one who was left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but they refused

**Author's Note:**

> This is a present for reindork-games on tumblr, for the 2015 Undertale Secret Santa. She has asked for something to do with Flowey/Asriel and I was more than happy to oblige.

You are small when you find it curled up on the golden flowers. You are small and not quite sure what _it_ is, but it opens its eyes and they are a bright, brilliant red, and something flutters in you.

But it is hurt, and there are tears in its eyes. So you help it back to your parents, and then you realize it is not an _it_.

It is a _they_ , and _they_ are _Chara_.

Chara is a human, your parents say. Chara is a wonderful name, you think.

You want Chara to look at you with those glowing red eyes once again, just so you can feel that _fluttering_ again.

* * *

_Later, the Chara that is not Chara looks at you through dark eyes that glow with DETERMINATION, and you want to cry._

_Because they will not just do what you want._

_They never have._

_Even when they were Chara._

_So you will make them, you will make them_ see _._

* * *

Chara lays in bed, breathing unsteadily. Your mother is crying, and your father looks wrecked, tired, and so old.

You’re scared, and you tell Chara so.

“Don’t you trust me?” they ask wearily.

“I do, I do! But Chara-”

“I have to do this. _We_ have to do this,” Chara says, in a voice choked and hoarse. “I will…I will be their angel. It’s…It’s all I’m good for, anyway. You’ll be a hero, Asriel. Their golden, shining prince. And I’ll do what I was meant to do.”

Their voice is bitter, and you don’t understand.

* * *

_You are immense, you are beyond everything and anything, and you can feeling darkness coiling around you, your flower’s body contorted into a rictus of horror._

_You are beyond everything, and certainly beyond the little heart that pulses in front of you, burning with DETERMINATION._

_So you throw things at it, whirling, slimy, bloodthirsty things without souls and they crush the little heart once, twice, again and again, and again and again._

_But they keep coming back._

_Again and again, and again and again._

* * *

Chara’s eyes close.

They breathe in and out, and out and out.

But they do not breathe back in.

You don’t understand. ( _Your mother wails and wails and wails._ ) You don’t understand. ( _Your father collapses to his knees beside Chara’s bed._ )

_You don’t understand._

“I don’t understand,” you tell the empty hallway, the plate of butterscotch pie you had been planning to share with Chara when they woke up trembling in your hands.

You can’t understand.

You don’t want to.

* * *

_They look almost_ shocked _as you pop out of the ground in front of them, your body flickering with the power of the souls you took. It’s cute, really._

_Asgore’s soul tastes just as good as the souls of the humans, better, even, because it’s not quite as stale._

_Fresh. The power is so fresh and good. You laugh and laugh and laugh, and your body contorts. You laugh and the growing vines that split from your body crack into the fabric of the universe._

_But something cold and dull and missing inside you bursts into the tiniest flame, fed by the souls._

_And something inside you, something so deep you can’t hear it right now, says_

**this is _wrong_**

* * *

Chara’s soul is a weighty thing in your hands. And it should be.

It’s Chara’s _soul_ , after all.

The heart is red, red like Chara’s eyes, glowing with some inner fire and promise. You pull it close to your chest, and feel it flutter excitedly in your hands.

“Are you ready, Ch-Chara,” you ask it, your voice cracking a bit. You wipe at you stinging eyes with one hand.

The soul flitters almost impatiently, and you can almost hear Chara’s voice in your ears.

_Hurry up, Asriel. We’ve got work to do._

“Okay, Chara,” you say, and sniffle back the tears.

You stand up and begin to walk to the door where the barrier is, holding the precious, precious weight carefully in your hands.

“Together. We’ll do it together.”

* * *

_They spare you. Once. Twice._

_Over and over and over. And over again._

_You scream at them in your tinny, shrieking voice that pales beside the grandeur of the being you had once been._

_Why? Why? WhyWhyWhyWhyWhyWhywhywhywhywh…why? Just kill me!_

_They smile at you, and keep smiling._

***but it refused**

_MERCY._

_You pull your roots from the ground, and you skitter away into the darkness. And something inside you, a tiny spark left from the embers of the souls, smiles._

* * *

You walk through the barrier together, Chara’s soul flickering inside you, and the barrier that has kept your people underground for centuries is no more a hindrance than a bunch of cobwebs batting in your face.

Chara’s laugh is bright and airy and a little cruel.

 _Six souls, Asriel,_ they say with utter glee as you carry their body to the golden flowers of the village. _Six souls, and monsterkind will be free. And humanity will pay._

You are powerful and strong and Chara is with you, and everything will be all right.

_You’re going to be a hero, Asriel._

Your big hands clench around Chara’s tiny, fragile body, and you stride towards where you know humans are.

* * *

_The souls aren’t listening to you._

_Why won’t they just listen, they never listen, they nEVER LISTEN WHY WON’T YOU JUST LISTEN CHARA I CAN’T PLEASE THIS HURTS I’M SORRY I NEVER WANTED THIS SIX SOULS WE WERE SO CLOSE ASRIEL YOU IDIOT_

_Eyes the color of the earth look up at you as you shriek and try to grab for the souls that pop away from your monstrous body and everything is spinning, spinning, spinning into a whirling haze of colors and you were so close, so close-_

_You see their smile, relieved and exhausted, as everything explodes into darkness._

_Their smile isn’t like Chara’s at all._

* * *

The arrows hurt. The arrows hurt so much.

But you won’t fight back.

Chara is screaming in your head, a piercing whine of rage. _FIGHT ASRIEL, FIGHT BACK, WE HAVE TO WIN WE_ HAVE _TO DO THIS-_

There had been fear on the faces of the humans, and terror, wrapping their arms around the children as they protected the little ones and you know- you know as you have never known before - that these people do not deserve to die.

Chara’s screams turn to wails as you kneel in the golden flowers, still holding them close.

Their soul no longer feels warm and powerful inside you, but cold and hard and sharp-edged, and Chara is _wailing_.

You remember the scars on their arms, the ones you saw on their back. You remember the way they spoke of humans below the earth, and the way their bright, bright red eyes would get this gleam.

You don’t understand the knowledge in your mind, you’re still so _young_ , but you know like know nothing else, that you will not hurt these people.

Chara’s still sobbing, and you can hear words in your mind, halting and furious and clogged.

_I don’t understand…you promised, Asriel, you promised._

You stand, with their cold, cold body in your arms, and walk back to the mountain.

* * *

_You are powerful again, powerful like you had been before, but this time you’ll make it stick, you’ll make it stick for real._

_You watch as Not!Chara talks with those idiots, laughing and smiling. The monsters look at the human with an emotion you can’t (don’t want) to understand in their eyes and it makes you ache and writhe with jealousy._

_You think of the other times (hundreds, thousands, millions of other times you remember, the ones that flitter on the edge of your consciousness)._

_You remember Chara killing them all, or Not!Chara killing only a few and escaping, you remember the world ending, all of time ending at Chara’s hands and going back to what it had been and your head hurts and_

_They had never made it to you and to Fath-Asgore._

_They had never made it to Asgore, not this one, the one whose determination has nothing to do with Chara and everything to do with them._

_They’ll leave you, and they’ll do it._

_They’ll leave you._

_No. No No No No NO NO NONONONONONONONONONONONO CHARA PLEASE I’M SORRY DON’T LEAVE I DON’T WANT TO DO THIS I DON’T WANT TO EXIST WHY CAN’T I FEEL DAMN YOU ALPHYS I WANT TO DIE EVERYTHING HAPPENS OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND NOTHING EVER CHANGES DON’T LEAVE ME BEHIND PLEASE FRI-_

_You call the power to blur out the screaming in your head and you smash a vine into existence, curling it around those idiots who are trying to take what belongs to_ you _away._

_No._

_They won’t leave you._

_They’ll never leave you._

_You won’t LET THEM._

* * *

The world is cold. You are cold. As cold as the body in your arms.

Chara is crying, but the sound is dim in your ears.

You hear feet running, and the door crashes open. Your father is there, with your mother. You try to smile at them, but it hurts, even through the cold.

“I…I’m sorry,” you tell them.

_It hurts._

There are tears in your father’s and mother’s eyes. You tried, you want to tell them. You really did. But you couldn’t. You failed.

Everything is cold and dark, and as the world vanishes, you hear your parents scream in anguish.

You don’t hear Chara, though.

You wish you could.

It’s kinda lonely.

* * *

_Love._

_Not LOVE, which you know so much about, but love._

_This is what you missed, when you awoke for the first time after you fell down and sat in the garden, knowing something was missing from you._

_This is love. You_ hate _it and_ want _it in equal measures, and those rolling emotions are eating you alive from the inside out._

_You look at that tiny figure with the soft red heart that’s so much like Chara’s but isn’t, and something screams and rages and sobs inside you as the monsters use their magic to protect the human._

_Their eyes focus on the human and the human’s eyes focus on them, and they stand up. Stand up through the pain and the fear, and they smile._

_You can hear other monsters now, other monsters who gather around, other monsters who shout loud enough to be heard by the group standing before the barrier, calling encouragement to a human barely taller than a flower._

_Your words can barely be heard over their yells, and finally you have had enough._ _You will make them all pay for thinking they can take what belongs to you away._

 _Their souls are_ yours _._

* * *

You open your eyes.

You open your eyes on a field of flowers. You feel your body extend deep into the ground.

No...not your body.

Your _roots_.

“Oh,” you say, feeling curiously empty. “This is something, isn’t it.”

Your voice sounds like Chara’s did on the bad days. You shouldn’t like that, but there’s something in you. Something hard and cold. And it likes it.

You smile.

It sits wrong on lips that aren’t really lips any more.

* * *

_Of course they fight back._

_You think in dark amusement that the day Not!Chara_ doesn’t _fight with the light of their DETERMINATION in their dark will be the day the world ends._

_But, what do you know, the world is ending. Maybe they’ll stop today._

_You pull lightning from the cracks within reality and hurl it at the tiny heart, which leaps and twirls and dodges away. They’re fast._

_You’re faster._

_Their small body is lifted off the ground, and for a second you can see every bones illuminated as the lightning passes through them._

_There is the smell of burning flesh, the sound of a heart cracking._

_They fall. And they do not get up. A crack forms through that red, red heart._

_You smile._

_And you try not to think about how wrong it feels._

* * *

You don’t feel anything.

Well, no…that’s not technically correct.

You feel _things_. But not good things. You try not to feel the bad things, and you try think of the good things, but it’s so hard.

Because they aren’t there anymore. You know in a detached way that you are Asriel Dremurr, that you love your mother, Toriel Dremurr, and that you love your father, Asgore Dremurr, the one who waters these plants.

You know these things.

But they are not there.

You _know_ about smiling and laughter. You _know_ about good food and warm hugs and soft smiles, just for you. You _know_ about red eyes and that quiet flutter in your chest.

But they are not there anymore-

-and you _hate it_.

* * *

_They die. They always die._

_You’re the Absolute God of Hyperdeath._

_What can they do against you?_

_But even as they die…_

_…they come back._

* * *

You learn how to kill.

Friendliness pellets, roots to strangle and kills and torment. There are always suckers to dupe and manipulate and break. Like that tall idiot skeleton.

You learn how to plot.

What happens if I get this person to go here and do this? How do I get this person to hurt this person without effort? How do people and monsters work to my enjoyment? How can I make people my toys?

You learn how to run and cower and hide.

That short skeleton, at first he hated you. He loved his brother, and oh, how he hated you. He was just as fast as you, and so very deadly, and you spend a long time running from him. Until he stops caring about even that.

But most of all…you learn how to RESET.

* * *

_The soul cracks. Pauses._

_Stops._

_And it does not turn into dust._

_DIE, you scream at it. DIE ALREADY._

***but it refused**

* * *

Eventually, they come. The Chara that is not Chara, or sometimes is.

You cajole and play and laugh with them and try to kill them – in some timelines, you do – and you almost think this is like what having a friend is like. You don’t love them. You LOVE them, and that must count for something.

But they always leave you.

And you _hate_.

* * *

_They look up at you with blazing, kind eyes, and they call to their beloved friends, pulling them free like they pulled the souls of the other humans free during the battle before._

_Their DETERMINATION blazes like a star, and the souls roar with life inside you, and you know you’re going to lose, you know you’re going to be alone again, and it hurts so much._

_Until._

_They look up at you again. They look into your eyes and hold out their hand to you._

_And they call your name._

* * *

Again and again and again they leave you.

Until they RESET. They took your power from you, and you almost think you would hate that, but.

But.

But…

You just want them to stay with you.

* * *

_Their arms wrap around you, and it is the first hug you have felt in so very, very long. You press your face into their shoulder and cling back for a long time. They seem just as unwilling as you to let go._

_Their hands clench into the back of your shirt as your shoulders heave. As tears stream down your cheeks, they nuzzle you, trying to offer with gestures what words could never give._

_“I don’t want to let go,” you say, laughing wetly, as terror and LOVE and love fills you._

_“Neither do I,” they say._

_And now there are tears on your shoulder as well._

* * *

They come once, twice.

Again and again and again.

Until they do not come for a very, very long time.

If you had the ability to, you would miss them.

You do miss them. You want them back.

You want…

* * *

_You tell them to take care of Mom and Dad. They’ll be a good family. A great family. And they’ll make sure this never happens again._

_You tell them to forget about you._

_But you forgot about what makes them, them._

_You forgot about DETERMINATION. And a child determined to save the world with it._

* * *

You are cold and alone and you are empty.

You are Flowey the Flower, and you plan.

And you will destroy the whole world, if you must, so that the next time they come to you, they will never leave.

* * *

_Their hands are gentle on your roots. Very gentle, achingly so, even as you scream deprecation after deprecation into their ears and at their face, fear and terror and longing in your every word._

_They set you on their lap._

_And everything begins to glow._

_You’re still screaming as you open your eyes, but it’s not your voice screaming any more._

_No, it is your voice. But it’s not…_

_…It’s not_ Flowey’s _._

_You look down at your hands, white-furred and clawed. You look down at your chest, covered with the green and yellow stripes. A half of a heart glimmers there. Half of a Soul._

_You look at them sitting across from you, and a half of a heart sits on their chest as well._

_“You should have left,” you say, your throat aching. “You should have left. I told you to leave. Why didn’t you?”_

_Frisk smiles and shrugs._

* * *

They could have left you, that’s true. They could have left you to sit under the mountain, in the cold, lonely expanse under the ground, and no one would have been the wiser for it.

Perhaps it would have been smarter, or safer. Sans had told them you were not worth saving, not worth risking your life for, but…

* * *

***but they refused.**


End file.
